The Economist Watcher: Economic Contributions of David Colander

ABSTRACT

This article gives an appraisal of the work of David Colander. After a brief biographical summary, we look at his work in methodology and the role that institutions and ‘vision’ play in his economic analysis. A crucial part of his work in this area is viewing not only the economy but also the economic profession as an adaptive complex system. This leads us to his major contributions to macroeconomics and economic education. We conclude with an overall assessment of his contributions to economics.     

Economic Policy and the Third Way

The Third Way has been criticised for its lack of a distinctive economic policy. This paper develops a set of policy interventions consistent with both economic efficiency and social solidarity.     

Economic Policy and the Progressive Idea

Abstract

Recent events in different countries suggest that institutional change is discontinuous and may lead to abrupt change. A specific case is shifts in social consensus. The article focuses on the latter. It argues that people make sense of their lives in relation to how they situate themselves within society. Their identities depend on the degree to which they are capable consciously to conduct their lives. Undesired economic change may disrupt previous identities and cause cognitive dissonance. At the collective level, it may trigger in-group versus out-group dynamics that provide a fictitious identity and either reinforce the status quo or suddenly subvert it.

Neoliberalism caused such undesired changes. A progressive alternative cannot rely just on convincing people that a change in conventional economic measures is desirable. It requires a recovery of people’s active and conscious self-identification. This involves overcoming their forced adaptation to the status quo through participation and collective action     

Transparency and Economic Policy

We provide a two period model of political competition in which voters imperfectly observe the electoral promises made to other voters. Imperfect observability generates an incentive for candidates to offer excessive transfers even if voters are homogeneous and taxation is distortionary. Government spending is larger than in a world of perfect observability. Transfers are partly financed through government debt, and the size of the debt is higher in less transparent political systems. The model provides an explanation of fiscal churning; it also predicts that groups whose transfers are less visible to others receive higher transfers, and that imperfect transparency of transfers may lead to underprovision of public goods. From the policy perspective, the main novelty of our analysis is a separate evaluation of the transparency of spending and the transparency of revenues. We show that the transparency of the political system does not unambiguously improve efficiency: transparency of spending is beneficial, but transparency of revenues can be counterproductive because it endogenously leads to increased wasteful spending.     

Wage Determination and Economic Policy

This article is a revised version of the Giblln Memorial Lecture presented on 1 September 1977 by Dr. J. E. Isaac, Deputy President of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. It is published by permission of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science and the text of the lecture is to appear in Search , Volume 8, No 11/12.     

中国经济政策变革的经济学分析--比较静态帕累托模型

本结合中国经济改革的实践，从帕累托最优以及帕累托改进的视角观察中国经济改革。在分析的过程中，将经典帕螺托最优的条件加以改进，首先放宽“生产技术条件不变”的条件，阐述中国计划经济向市场经济转轨过程是生产的帕累托改进，继而放宽“个人效用量独立”的条件，认为“西部大开发”即是交换的帕累托改进。     

自主创新政策的经济合理性及“政策失灵”现象研究

对促进自主创新的政策及理论基础进行了描述,并以此为基础对自主创新需要政策支持的经济学动因及政策边界进行了分析,认为创新产品的外部性及不确定性是自主创新政策产生的根源,政策的作用就在于矫正市场创新成本和收益的扭曲现象,以使创新者形成合理预期,激发自主创新行为,但自主创新政策也可能因存在效率损失及受其它政策目标制约等原因而导致"失灵"现象,自主创新政策的有效范围应该是在"市场失灵"和"政策失灵"之间,"市场失灵"和"政策失灵"是其可能性边界。     

Economic Mismeasurement and the Bias in Policy Choice

The level of economic activity is never measured perfectly because of problems of definition, inaccuracies in data collection, and the existence of the hidden economy. Such mismeasurement implies that government policies based on official statistics can be optimal only by chance. The analysis formalizes this observation in a two-sector economy and attempts to quantify the direction and extent of the bias introduced into policy by the failure to account for the true size of the economy. It is shown that short-term reform (which need not balance the government budget) can be detrimental. When a budget constraint is imposed, this ensures that reforms will be beneficial no matter how bad is the mismeasurement.     

论经济法的政策性

尽管学界对经济法众说纷纭，但普遍承认经济法是一个国家和政府经济政策的法律化。认为：政策性是经济法的本质特征，经济政策对经济法的内容、体系、实施等方面都有决定意义。同时认为，经济法也是法，其政策性是与整个法秩序一致的，否则经济法就失去了法的意义和价值。     

流动人口的经济效应及其政策建议

随着我国经济的快速发展,大量人口流入城市,为城市的基础建设和经济增长做出了很大的贡献.流动人口在对经济发展产生积极作用的同时,也存在着客观方面的负经济效应,即带来一系列社会成本.减少流动人口外部不经济是实现经济效益最大化的基本途径.     

经济政策不确定性与企业多元化程度选择

多元化是现代企业发展战略中的一个重要问题。近年来多元化程度下降成为我国上市公司发展中一个主要特征。以2003-2017年沪深两市上市公司为研究对象,考察经济政策不确定性对上市公司多元化的影响。结果显示:经济政策不确定性与上市公司多元化程度显著负相关;对内生性问题进行处理后,这种负相关性在民营企业、高成长企业、非受保护行业的企业以及在金融危机爆发后更为明显。进一步研究还表明:上市公司经营实力、治理环境和股东监督力度的提高,会使经济政策不确定性对降低公司多元化程度的影响有所减弱。政府减少政策变动,保持政策的长期性和稳定性,并在制定经济政策时充分考虑企业的异质性特征,有利于企业多元化程度选择;另一方面,公司也需不断提高自身的学习能力,优化治理体系,增强抗风险能力。     

Economic Polarization and US Policy Activism

Many economists view the increased inequality associated with globalization as the cause of the US ‘employment miracle’. This paper argues, to the contrary, that any such benefits are short-lived. Increased income inequality has heightened social—and especially racial and genderpolarization; and the reactions of globally mobile corporations to this polarization have reduced both access to capital and the size of the fiscal and monetary policy multipliers. Stimulative macroeconomic policy remains crucial in achieving a more prosperous, less unequal society, if it includes measures to enhance access to human and financial capital.     

Heterodox Economic Thinking and Public Policy

Research on innovation and entrepreneurship policy (IEP) is almost exclusively concerned with the instrumental question of which policy measures are most effective in promoting “productive” entrepreneurial activities. The positive (political economy) and normative (welfare) dimensions are largely neglected. I focus on the latter, asking what could be a plausible normative rationale for innovation policy beyond the simple invocation of “growth” and the related use of orthodox criteria (such as “market failure”). This is a non-trivial issue, given (i) the ambiguous welfare implications of innovation in general, and (ii) the fact that standard notions of welfare cannot be consistently applied in an entrepreneurial, “Schumpeterian” economy. I suggest a dynamic criterion according to which IEP should ensure that individuals are able to engage in effective preference learning over time. This reconstruction of the normative basis of innovation policy helps clarify several contentious issues, among which are the desirability of selfemployment and the role of social security arrangements.     

经济政策不确定性与并购商誉

经济政策的制定与实施是监管部门进行宏观调控和塑造良好营商环境的重要手段,经济政策不确定性可能会改变并购双方风险态度,进而影响并购商誉.文章以2008-2017年沪深两市A股上市公司数据为研究样本,考察了经济政策不确定性对并购商誉的影响.研究结果表明:经济政策不确定性显著降低了并购商誉,且在民营企业上市公司、股权集中度高,以及产品市场竞争低的上市公司中表现得更为明显.研究据此提出经济政策预期引导和积极运用经济政策不确定性选择效应的建议.